Agora Report: The LGBT Community - Outside Russia's Legal Framework

"The promotion of homosexuality has taken on a broad scope in modern-day Russia. This kind of propaganda is carried out through the media, as well as through the active staging of public protests promoting homosexuality as normal behaviour. It is especially dangerous to children and young people, who are not yet capable of critically evaluating this avalanche of information that falls on them on a daily basis. In the light of this, it is necessary to first and foremost protect the younger generation from the effects of homosexual propaganda. That is the aim of this bill." [From the Explanatory Notes to the Federal draft law "On Introducing Amendments to the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offences."]

This is how State Duma deputies justified the need for the adoption of a federal law which places same-sex relationships of citizens on a par with socially dangerous acts, thereby unjustifiably restricting the legal rights and freedoms of LGBT people. [Read more]